We spent the year of 2016 surrendering over our circumstances and our lives to God. I know that this practice is going to continue into 2017 because it is essential to the Christian faith. I almost thought about doing it again in 2017 but I felt like God was putting another word on my heart.
Here are a few things I feel like I learned this year:
- Being quick to apologize and not hold on to anger
- Giving my fears and worries to God instead of trying to control my own situation.
- Finding comfort in God instead of trying to control my situation.
- Experiencing God better because I was removing my way and making way for his way! I feel like when I remove those barriers that I put up, God shows up in a big way.
I am not by any means perfect in any of those areas that I listed above. I still let my fears take over once in awhile and I will often be slow to forgive, but I do feel like God is placing different reactions in me and those times are becoming less and less. I feel like I can turn to him more instead of relying on myself.
This fall I started thinking and praying about what word would change my lifestyle and mindset as much as the word surrender. I didn’t think that it was possible to top. I do feel like God did it, though. I had an internal change in 2016 and I feel like in 2017, God is calling me to have an external change. I feel like he wants me to be his disciple and disciple others.
This word, like surrender, makes me uncomfortable because discipling people means that I will have to give up my own comfort. I like to keep to myself and not have to engage people. Jesus often gave up his own comfort to be with those who needed him. I think being in the people business can be a hard place to be. I find myself constantly worrying about offending people, or if they are comfortable or not. Jesus didn’t call us to make ourselves comfortable, he called us to go and make disciples of all nations. (Matthew 28:16-20)
It has also been out of my comfort zone to talk about Jesus in my everyday conversations. I think that if he is King in my life, he would be a part of my regular conversations. Anything that we are interested in or care about comes up in our daily talks with others. Jesus needs to be center in our lives and should come up in conversation with others.
I still don’t know what this discipleship will look like in our lives for 2017. I do know that God has a plan for us and that we are willing to follow. It should be a great year!